LibrePlanet 2016

...before Daniel could finish the room broke out into clapping and standing ovation. Edward responded with clear emotion by thanking the community for creating free software. Sitting down in front...

...feeling the energy, emotion and celebration was vibrant in the room. It was a great kick off to the day. Naturally things ran over time and those watching the stream had sound related issues, so Ruben our newest tech team member, made a valiant effort to edit the video to share it amongst all of you.

Hi there. I'm Sumana Harihareswara and I'm going to speak with you about "inessential weirdnesses in free software". Just some housekeeping to start: I am not using any slides today, I will be taking questions at the end, and I'll be posting the text of my remarks online later today. And there are other good talks happening right now, so to help you decide whether to stay in this room: this talk is going to be more interesting to people who already have been participants in free software for a few years, who can use tools we commonly use in our community, like version control, IRC, mailing lists, bug trackers, and wikis, and who are already familiar with general free software trends and arguments. And this talk is going to be most interesting to people who regularly spend time working to help reach out to new people and get them to use free software and participate in our communities. So if that is not particularly interesting to you then I do encourage you to check out the other talks happening right now -- I am particularly jealous that I can't go to Luis Villa's talk applying a capability approach to issues of software freedom.

More in Tux Machines

With only two days left until the upcoming Ubuntu 17.10 (Artful Aardvark) operating system hits the Final Beta milestone, developers are still working on adding finishing touches to this release, and they've again improved the Ubuntu Dock.

NethServer's Alessio Fattorini just informed us today about the availability of the first Beta release of the upcoming NethServer 7.4 Linux server-oriented operating system, which is based on CentOS 7.4 and comes with various improvements.

Firefox takes a Quantum leap forward with new developer edition

Earlier this year we wrote about Project Quantum, Mozilla's work to modernize Firefox and rebuild it to handle the needs of the modern Web.
Today, that work takes a big step toward the mainstream with the release of the new Firefox 57 developer edition. The old Firefox developer edition was based on the alpha-quality Aurora channel, which was two versions ahead of the stable version. In April, Mozilla scrapped the Aurora channel, and the developer edition moved to being based on the beta channel. The developer edition is used by a few hundred thousand users each month and is for the most part identical to the beta, except it has a different theme by default—a dark theme instead of the normal light one—and changes a few default settings in ways that developers tend to prefer.

Latest News

Security: Deloitte, Ransomware, Equifax, Denmark, and macOS 0-Day

Hackers [sic] are said to have accessed confidential emails and plans of Deloitte's blue-chip clients, along with usernames, passwords, IP addresses, architectural diagrams for businesses and health information.

Equifax's massive data breach has claimed another victim - Richard Smith, the company's CEO and Chairman of the Board. Equifax announced that Smith is retiring from his role at the company, effective Sept. 26.
"The cybersecurity incident has affected millions of consumers, and I have been completely dedicated to making this right," Smith stated. "At this critical juncture, I believe it is in the best interests of the company to have new leadership to move the company forward."
Equifax announced on Sept. 7 that it was the victim of a data breach the exposed personally identifiable information on 143 million Americans. The company initially reported that it first became aware of the breach on July 29, though subsequent reports have alleged that the company was breached as early as March.

Denmark’s Ministry of Finance is to finalise Denmark’s national strategy for cyber and information security. The ministry recently took over coordination of the plans, which previously were being prepared by the Ministry of Defence. The strategy is to be presented early next year, reports Denmark’s Agency for Digitisation (Digitaliseringsstyrelsen - DIGST).

There's a vulnerability in High Sierra and earlier versions of macOS that allows rogue applications to steal plaintext passwords stored in the Mac keychain, a security researcher said Monday. That's the same day the widely anticipated update was released.
The Mac keychain is a digital vault of sorts that stores passwords and cryptographic keys. Apple engineers have designed it so that installed applications can't access its contents without the user entering a master password. A weakness in the keychain, however, allows rogue apps to steal every plaintext password it stores with no password required. Patrick Wardle, a former National Security Agency hacker who now works for security firm Synack, posted a video demonstration here.

Facebook Licence-Patents Debacle

Thirty-five days after publicly stating, in response to objections from the Apache Software Foundation among others, that the company would not be re-licensing its React library, Facebook on Friday announced that it was re-licensing its React library. It was a surprising but welcome reversal for many in the industry, including Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg.
Ten days ago, Mullenweg published a piece that was at once understanding and blunt announcing that React would be excised from WordPress related projects. The problem was not Automattic – their general counsel saw little problem with the license – but given the breadth of WordPress’ distribution, the decision was made to remove the software because of the uncertainties surrounding its license. As bad as it was being banished from Apache Software Foundation projects, this was worse. Depending on whose numbers you use, WordPress can account for something close to one in four websites.
Given such extensive and escalating costs, the burden of proving the offsetting benefits to a patent clause required by virtually no one else in the industry presumably became too great, at which point the only rational decision would be to re-license the asset – difficult as such backtracking may have been.

Firefox Quantum

Earlier this year we wrote about Project Quantum, Mozilla's work to modernize Firefox and rebuild it to handle the needs of the modern Web.
Today, that work takes a big step toward the mainstream with the release of the new Firefox 57 developer edition. The old Firefox developer edition was based on the alpha-quality Aurora channel, which was two versions ahead of the stable version. In April, Mozilla scrapped the Aurora channel, and the developer edition moved to being based on the beta channel. The developer edition is used by a few hundred thousand users each month and is for the most part identical to the beta, except it has a different theme by default—a dark theme instead of the normal light one—and changes a few default settings in ways that developers tend to prefer.

Engines are important, both in cars and in browsers. That’s why we’re so revved up this morning – we’re releasing the Beta of a whole new Firefox, one that’s powered by a completely reinvented, modernized engine. Since the version number – 57 – can’t really convey the magnitude of the changes we’ve made, and how much faster this new Firefox is, we’re calling this upcoming release Firefox Quantum.